


no grave could hold my body down;

by woahrebecca



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU, Angst, Episode 68 Spoilers, F/M, Hand Kisses, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8117278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woahrebecca/pseuds/woahrebecca
Summary: Percy dies, but he doesn't stay dead, not really. Because he is a stubborn man who still has things to do.Vex is there to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for your consideration: Percy as an Orthax-type entity. Let me have this. It could never work but Let Me Have This.
> 
> title from Work Song by Hozier aka the most perc'ahlia song right now

Vex sits in Percy’s room in the currently silent Whitestone Castle and stares at the wall that blurs in her vision as tears well up in her eyes.

 

Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III is dead. Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III is dead. Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III is dead.

 

Percy is dead.

 

 _Genius-tinkerer-creator_ Percy is dead. _Dark-yet-kind_ Percy is dead. Member of Vox Machina Percy is dead. Her friend Percy is dead. She _liked_ Percy and now he’s dead.

 

She laughs and the wall in front of her blurs more as she is openly sobbing now, clutching her knees to her chest.

 

She _loved_ Percy, and now he’s dead.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t for lack of trying, because Gods did they try. They prayed to Sarenrae, to Vesh, to the Raven Queen yet nothing was enough.

 

She had placed the siege arrow - _an evening of unbridled guilt, for breaking things that should not be broken, for breaking hearts left and right if that is what she was after_ \- forward as her offering, the closest thing she could get to pulling her own beating heart from her chest - _my heart belongs to someone else and that was you and now it belongs to no-one_ \- and offering that up instead.

 

She figures declaring her love for Percy then would’ve been a bit melodramatic. In hindsight she thinks that Percy would’ve appreciated it.

 

She was going to kiss him when he woke up, was going to kiss him and tell him everything when he woke.

 

But the arrow snapped and Keyleth’s bird skull shattered and Cassandra’s de Rolo crest bent and Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III stayed dead.

 

He stayed cold and dead and still and was buried three days later in the family crypt.

 

* * *

 

Vox Machina knows the world is burning down around them and they need to get back to work but they give themselves a week to gather themselves.

 

It is the sixth night and Vex has barely left his workshop, she’s ground six arrows down as she carves grooves into the wall, something to keep her hands occupied as her brain races through what-if situations and replays everything in vivid detail in front of her.

 

Sleep finds her, eventually, despite her best efforts to avoid it, not wanting to mix the nightmares after Fenthris with the pain of losing Percy.

 

* * *

 

He’s standing there, of course he is, she knew he would be. Percy is standing there with his hair messed up but not too messed up and his coat is clean and crisp and he looks fine and he is breathing and alive and it is everything she wanted to see yet also a nightmare for her.

 

He steps towards her, a hand outstretched and he touches her face - like she had when she had healed him before, she could heal him then but not when it really counted - and she shivers because his hands are cold and smooth and not warm and calloused but she will take this small moment of dream-state victory over reality right now.

 

“Percy, I-” she starts before she realises she doesn’t know how she was going to end the sentence. Was it with “I love you” or “I’m sorry” or “I tried” or all three at once? She can’t remember now and stutters to a stop.

 

He smiles, softly “I know, Vex’ahlia.” he takes a breath “Lady Vex’ahlia, believe me I know.”

 

She doesn’t realise she’s crying until he brushes a thumb across her cheek.

 

“I can’t believe you’re gone,” she sniffles out holding his hand where it rests against her cheek.

 

“Oh I’m not really gone,” he laughs a little “You and I both know I’m too stubborn to be gone when I die, I have things to do still.”

 

“So you’ll be back, somehow? Should I go break you out of your crypt?”

 

He shakes his head, “There is no need to desecrate my grave, no. I, myself, will not be back, but a small part of me will stay.”

 

“That makes no sense to me, but I’m happy to know you’re not really gone.”

 

His hand moves to hold hers, and he pulls it to his mouth and kisses the back of her hand. “Hopefully this helps it make sense, you’ll be helping me stay.”

 

Vex’s heart races, partly from the feeling of Percy’s lips against her skin - not that they haven’t kissed before, but this is so different - and partly from the black shadow that creeps up her arm and settles in her skin.

 

“Well, this is farewell for now. I’m not entirely sure how this works but I do hope I get to visit again. In case I don’t and this was all a useless effort. I love you, Lady Vex’ahlia.”

 

“I love you too, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III”

 

That morning, Vex wakes up with Percy’s mask in her hand and a tingling sensation on her arm. She ties the mask onto her belt and ignores the looks she receives from the rest of Vox Machina as they set off once again.

 

* * *

 

When they travel to Vasselheim, they come across the men with guns that Ripley had sold them and when the first shot towards them fires, an all too familiar sound ringing out around them that makes Vex think of blues and golds and white hair and the feeling in her arm spikes and she flings it out, watches as the shadow swirls around the shooter.

 

In the back of her head, hushed, she hears Percy “There we go, knew you’d figure it out” and she can hear the smile in his voice before she is interrupted by Vax’s very loud exclamation of his twin’s newfound ability.

 

Once the shooter is down for good, when she thinks the others aren’t looking she pockets the gun and puts it on her belt, hiding it behind the comfortable weight of Percy’s mask resting against her thigh.

 

That night, as she takes her watch by herself, she pulls it out and inspects it, feels its weight in her hand and brushes her hand over the cool metal.

 

“Absolutely horrible workmanship, if I’m being honest,” Percy’s voice speaks in the back of her head and she smiles slightly, turning it over in her hand.

 

“I want to learn how to use it Percy.”

 

He sighs for a moment and she can’t judge the emotion he’s hiding under layers of shadow. “Of course you do.”

 

* * *

 

Over time she does learn, she practices the different aiming between this pistol and her trusty bow and whenever her aim is too far off, Percy’s voice picks up in the back of her head and she can swear she feels his body against hers, his hands guiding hers to where they need to be to hit true like he would.

 

He teaches her how to make ammo, tells her how to craft small bullets safely and soon her hands are covered in small burns and she is covered in soot but she doesn’t care.

 

When the time comes, and she walks straight forward in the face of Thordak, she pulls the mask over her face as smoke and shadows billow from her back, spiralling from her hair and she fires three straight shots into the Cinder King’s face.

 

“And that -” she calls out as the final gunshot rings out through the burned streets of Emon “- was for Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III!”

 

“That’s my girl, that’s my Lady Vex’ahlia.” Percy whispers into her mind as Thordak falls to the ground.

 

* * *

 

He stays, he stays in the back of her mind after her adventuring days are over. She stays in Whitestone, helps Cassandra rule - _“he loved you, you know that right?” “I know”_ \- and spends her time in the family crypt, her back resting against the freshest tomb.

 

He is with her as she dies, years and years later, and she sees him again after that. He is standing in front of her like the day she saw him the first time in her dream and she is back to the same age as she was then. He reaches down and kisses her.


End file.
